Finn Fancy Necromancy (27 page)

18

Blasphemous Rumors

I drove across the Hood Canal Bridge, following Zeke's directions to Kingston. Zeke shifted again in the passenger seat, and looked decidedly uncomfortable. He was back in his Magi Vice outfit and looked nearly as white as his jacket.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I hate bridges,” he said.

I chose not to ask why, since I felt certain the answer had something to do with me being a fool. I turned on the radio and listened to how music had changed in the past twenty-five years. The first band sounded like a Pixies knockoff, the next two had touches of Grandmaster Flash and New Order. A couple of catchy tunes, though there seemed to be more noise and less melody than I was used to. I might have turned it off, except it obviously annoyed Zeke. I turned it up. He lasted until we passed through the picture-perfect town of Port Gamble, when the singer started scream-whining over a dying drum machine. It was a bit Sigue Sigue Sputnik meets a bandsaw. I imagined it looked impressive on stage though, with Mechagodzilla stomping on robot cats and all. Zeke punched the radio off, his glower daring me to challenge his decision. I shrugged.

Zeke checked the contents of his pockets for the hundredth time. “When we get there, you do what I say. I've dealt with witches before. They may not have the raw power of wizards, but they can be twice as dangerous.”

“What's your plan?”

“If we can, we'll sneak in and find their sanctum before confronting them. A witch is far less dangerous if we can cut off access to their talismans and foci.”

“And if we can't?”

“Then stay behind me and be ready for a nasty fight.”

“Right.” I sighed. It would have been nice to have Pete with us again for extra muscle, though I felt equally glad he hadn't come. The last thing I wanted was to endanger him again.

Kingston was a “blink and you'll miss it” town whose main purpose for existing was its ferry dock, which connected the Olympic Peninsula with “mainland” suburbia north of Seattle. Like Port Townsend, it had grown in the past twenty-five years, with a couple of grocery shopping centers and new housing communities spreading along the main road like ivy climbing a post.

The early-morning sun had just peaked the treetops by the time we neared the location marked on the map, in the heart of Kingston not far from the ferry dock. It looked like the Stepford Wives area of town. I peered up the Króls' street as we passed, and frowned.

“This can't be right.” The street led to a cul-de-sac of Easter-colored houses with perfect lawns, flower gardens, and shiny, boxy vehicles in the drives. I'd expected something more like a stone fortress reached by a craggy cliffside road, possibly with horses that whinnied as lightning flashed overhead. Or at least, something that looked more appropriate for a coven of evil witches. I pulled into the next street, parked, and consulted the map. We had the right spot. “Huh.”

“Something wrong?” Zeke asked.

“No. I don't know. I just expected something different, I guess.”

Zeke glanced around at the houses. “This feels right to me. Easier for witches to lure in fools with a house of bread and cake than a house of bones, yeah?”

Of course. Hansel and Gretel. I should have remembered my lessons. These houses would be a bit tough on the teeth, but they were the color of cupcakes, and probably full of families with their 2.5 plump children.

I resumed driving and parked in the lot of a church several blocks away. We hiked back along the main road, then cut up into the woods as we neared the Króls' cul-de-sac. No sense in making it too obvious.

Zeke paused and reached inside his jacket as though digging through an inside pocket. The white jacket and pants became brown and green camouflage, blending with the pine trees and ferns around us.

“Nice!” I said. “Jacket by Ralph Lothlórien.”

I'd actually seen a real elven cloak once in the Museum of Necromancy, but it was a cloak made from the skins of elves, and not at all what Tolkien had in mind, I think—though I guess it still would have blended nicely into wooded surroundings.

Zeke shot me a glare, then continued marching through the woods. I followed.

We neared the edge of the woods around the cul-de-sac. Zeke pointed to our right and whispered, “I want to circle around. I'm guessing the center house is theirs.”

“Why's that?”

“It has gnomes on the lawn.”

We circled around the cul-de-sac until Zeke held up a hand, signaling for me to stop. I moved behind a nearby tree and waited, peeking around the edge. Zeke knelt down, pulled back the left sleeve of his jacket, and held up his wrist to reveal a silver Casio calculator watch. He moved his arm around, occasionally tapping at the watch.

Zeke finished whatever he was doing and crept back to my position.

“Alarm talismans,” he whispered. “See there, where those two branches split?” He pointed up into the tree canopy.

I squinted and saw something in the crook of the branches, a bundle of sticks perhaps, and what looked like a small animal skull.

“What do we do?”

Zeke plopped his duffel down on the ground and pulled out an animal pelt. He turned away from me. “Get on my back,” he whispered over his shoulder.

“What?”

“Don't make me ask again. The pelt will hide us, but it's not wide enough to cover two people walkin' side by side.”

“Uh, sure, okay.” I hopped up on his back, wrapping my arms around his neck and gripping his torso with my legs. He handed me the duffel to hold, then flipped the pelt over both our heads, and lumbered forward.

Not exactly the most impressive way to charge a den of bad witches, I suppose.

Speaking of bad witches, riding piggyback reminded me of Pete, who'd often given me piggyback rides when we were younger, which reminded me again that Pete wasn't with us, which reminded me
why
he wasn't with us, which made me sad. It also reminded me of the time I gave barefooted Heather a piggyback ride across a field of gravel while walking her home, which reminded me that she wasn't talking to me, which again made me sad. That was a lot of bad whiches indeed, which was too bad because I suspected that piggyback rides came along very rarely in adulthood, and it seemed a real shame to not enjoy them. Even the ones given by grumpy Vikings.

I braced for the animal skulls in the trees to begin shrieking, but none did. We reached the edge of the woods, and Zeke said, “Off.”

I slid onto the ground, and Zeke rushed to the side of the nearest house. I copied him, pressing my back against the peach-colored siding.

He stuffed the pelt back into the bag and shook his arm so that his watch settled down near his hand. He tapped on the calculator keys and held the watch near me, then hit a couple more keys and grunted.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“No.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm calculating how annoying your questions are, but my watch doesn't go that high, fool.”

He moved along the back of the house to the sliding glass doors, and I followed. Zeke squatted down low and peeked through the doors. After a few seconds he tapped at his watch again, appeared satisfied with whatever the result was, and pulled a skeleton key from beneath his shirt, hung on a leather cord. This was a true skeleton key, made from the enchanted finger-bone of a skilled thief, a rare artifact that combined necromantic and thaumaturgic magic yet was, for some reason, not very popular with thieves.

Zeke touched the finger bone to the edge of the sliding door, and then pushed gently on the door itself. It slid open.

“Stay very close to me as we pass through the threshold, dig?” he whispered. He crept forward, and I got as close as I could, my hands on his back. I felt the tingle of wards as we passed over the threshold, but again no alarms sounded.

We were in what looked like a family room, with a sofa and lounge chairs, a large television, and plastic musical instruments.

Zeke turned in a slow circle, consulting his watch. I drew the family gun from my jacket pocket, an old revolver loaded with silver bullets.

“Why didn't the alarm go off?” I whispered.

“If I tell you, will you shut up?”

“Maybe,” I said.

He continued to look at his watch as he muttered, “I measured our magic level, and created a subtraction field around us to cancel it out so the wards didn't— There. I'm picking up something this way.”

He led me to a laundry room, and then to the shelves at the back filled with cleaning supplies. He touched his skeleton key to several spots along the shelves and the wall around them, until a soft
click
sounded, and the shelves swung out from the wall.

“Let's see what the Króls have going on,” Zeke whispered. I swung the hidden door fully open, and Zeke led the way into the small room beyond.

The paraphernalia of dark witchcraft filled the room, including engraved skulls, crucibles, animal bones, silver knives, blood drawing equipment, black candles, and cupcake tins.

I noted a complete absence of rock albums and D&D modules, however, which would have come as a sore disappointment to our old mundy neighbor, Missus Bumshaw, who'd repeatedly informed me that such items were the gateways to evil and witchcraft. Instead, a desk sat against the back wall, covered in papers. Above it hung a sheet of paper with big red letters printed on it, some crossed out:

1) Control PTA

2) Control church

3) Control Town

Beneath the list was a collage of tacked-up news clippings from local papers, a map with lots of circles on it, and photos of people with ziplock bags pinned to them containing hair, nail clippings, bits of cloth, and other items. And mixed in with all of that, a lot of recipes for baked goods.

“Looks like they've been busy,” Zeke whispered, then spun around, his baton extending and springing into bright white light in his hand.

I turned and raised the gun, half expecting to see a hex flying at my face. A woman stood in the entrance to the room, her arms crossed. She had square features and thick blond hair and dressed as though her husband was the Republican candidate for president of the United States.

“Who are you, and why are you in my home?” she asked, without any trace of Austrian accent.

“Uh,” I said.

“We have a few questions for you,” Zeke said.

“Really? I haven't seen an enforcer dressed like that in, well, quite a while. Somehow, I don't think you've come from the ARC. Which makes me wonder how you'd feel if I called them?”

“I'd feel great,” Zeke said. “Ask for Enforcer Captain Vickers; tell him his favorite retiree says I've got a clan of illegal feybloods I wanna introduce him to.”

The woman arched an eyebrow. She smiled and took a step into the room. “Very well. What do you want?” Her hand reached out casually to the workbench beside her.

Zeke tapped a nearby jar containing a tentacled something in green liquid. It crashed to the floor. “Oops,” he said. “Maybe we should step away from the dark magics and talk someplace less dangerous?”

The woman glared murder at Zeke, but she raised her hands, backed through the door, and continued to walk in deliberate steps backward through the laundry room. Zeke moved in pace with her, and I followed suit. She stepped out into the family room, far enough so we could follow.

Zeke put out his arm, stopping me from leaving the laundry room. “This is defensible,” he whispered back at me.

“Is there a problem?” the woman asked.

“Uh, no,” I said. “We just really like your laundry room; it's comfy and smells good. What kind of softener do you use?”

“Dryad tears, if you must know,” the woman said. “But as long as we're discussing comfort, can I offer you something? Some beer perhaps? Or muffins?”

“I ain't no sucker, to take food from a witch,” Zeke said.

“Of course not. But you're guests in my home, and it would've been rude not to offer.”

Her home? Facts clicked together in my head. Literally, I hear facts clicking together in my head sometimes. I don't know if it's just my overactive imagination, or some heightened sensitivity to the life energy behind neurons firing, but either way it is a rather annoying and smug sound.

If this was her home, that made her the clan matriarch, though she hardly looked old enough for the role. “You're Aunt Giselle.”

“I think if you were my nephew, I'd know it.”

“No, I meant— I knew Felicity. You're her aunt Giselle, right?”

“Ah, of course, I see now.” She crossed her arms. “You're Phinaeus Gramaraye. Is this your brother Paeteri, then? I'd heard reports that he was … meaty.”

“Do we really look like brothers?” I asked, choosing to ignore her choice of words.

Giselle shrugged. “Magic works many changes, not all of them unseen. Who can say what the manner of your conception begat?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Enough distractions,” Zeke said. “We know you've made several attacks on the Gramaraye family and tried to get Finn exiled. What's your game?”

“Well, you certainly know a lot,” Giselle said. “Unfortunately, none of it is true.”

Footsteps and children's voices sounded on the stairs to our right, and a boy and girl appeared. They looked to be about twelve. They were almost too cute for words. But only almost, so the words would probably be “eugenics” and “Village of the Damned.”

“The Andersons are bringing their brats over,” the boy said to Giselle.

“About time too,” the girl said. “I'm starv—”

“Children,” Giselle said sharply. “We have guests. I believe you've met?” She nodded in the direction of Zeke and me.

The children froze on the bottom steps for a second, looking at us. Then the girl turned and ran up the stairs.